[PLUG-TALK] My Job Went to India by Chad Fowler
glen e. p. ropella
gepr at tempusdictum.com
Tue Dec 13 18:45:35 UTC 2005
Rich Shepard wrote:
> Perhaps we should import those engineers from China and India and, to
> keep the balance in trade, export our lawyers to those countries.
> Fair dinkum, eh?
I realize you're joking, of course. But has anyone considered that the
domination of the world economy does not lie in engineering? I see many
people worried about tech jobs going overseas and "engineering degrees"
being produced by other countries. But, it smacks of statistical magic
and scary propoganda to me. What does "engineering" mean to these
various countries and universities?
Further, as we evolve out of the industrial age deeper into the
information age, aren't "informationists" more valuable and more
powerful than "industrialists"? Assuming society doesn't collapse when
we cross the Hubbert oil peak, the people who can create and manage
information will be at the top. Basically, that means that rather than
focus on people who create and manipulate _things_ (what I call an
"engineer"), we need to train people to create and manipulate
_abstractions_ (Popper's world 3 objects).
Of course, the spectrum of "informationists" spans everything from
embedded systems programmers (closest to the typical "engineer") all the
way up to lawyers (justices, legislators, ethicists, philosophers, and
scientists). "Business people" sit somewhere in between an industrial
engineer and a lawyer in this spectrum.
I would no more want the US to be largely populated by engineers than I
would want it to be largely populated by textile or assembly-line
workers. I'd much rather have a country full of CEOs or lawyers than a
country full of engineers because the majority of the power lies with
the CEOs and lawyers.
Of course, some type of balance is necessary... and given my skills and
predisposition, I'd end up being a barely competent informationist or
one of the second-class engineer-citizens. But, c'est la vie. The
ideal population in my mind would be one dominated by scientists,
lawyers, and CEOs. We should outsource most of the engineering.
... assuming society doesn't collapse, of course. [grin] If that
happens, then I'd opt for a population of engineers, of course.
--
glen e. p. ropella =><= Hail Eris!
H: 503-630-4505 http://ropella.net/~gepr
M: 971-219-3846 http://tempusdictum.com
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